Monthly Archives: February 2015

It’s no secret that I love Tetris, as my Tetris-themed wallpaper attests to. For over a year I was eying the Jenga Tetris game, thinking the plastic pieces were cool but not sure what to do with them.

Then it hit me: make the pieces into refrigerator magnets! I’d been separately trying to come up with an idea for nerdy fridge magnets, and finally the ideas came together.

It’s really simple.

Buy Jenga Tetris. I got mine off Amazon but it was in Walmart and other stores for a long time (in my area it disappeared after Christmas 2014).

Take out the uniquely Tetris pieces. There weren’t as many as actual Tetris pieces as I hoped for. One square, maybe 3 s/z-shapes, 5 L-shapes, 3 t-shapes, and a few two block shapes (not a true tetronomino, rather a domino). The purist in me is also disappointed by the lines, which are only three blocks long, not four (a trinomino?). About 2/3 of the package is just lines.

Put magnets on the backs. First I started with square magnets I got from Hobby Lobby. They have adhesive backs and stick very well.

The problem was they were a little pricy if you wanted full coverage, so I settled on putting the magnets in the corners of the pieces. When I ran out, I switched to magnet tape. It has a much lower profile, and is cheaper, so you can fully cover the back of each magnet.

You can also find the tape at hobby and craft stores. When it comes off the roll, it’s curved, so the edges want to lift up. To get them to stick down better, I put the magnets on all the pieces, then put them under a stack of books and games overnight.

In actuality, I forgot about the magnets, so they ended up staying under the weights for three days, but that’s probably not necessary.

And that’s it! This project is really simple; it probably takes longer to go to the store and buy all the materials than it does to actually make, especially since you probably need to get the game and the magnets at different stores.

Enough Tetris pieces came in the Jenga game that I was able to make two sets of magnets, one for me and one for my brother.

They are a lot of fun to move around the refrigerator when I’m making dinner!